During the fiscal year 2013 (FY2013), the government provided a rebate of 20 yen/watt for the installed system cost below 400 yen/watt and 15 yen/watt for the system cost below 500 yen/watt and above 400 yen/watt.
According to J-PAC, the average system cost for retrofit systems was 414 yen/watt while that for new homes was 378 yen/watt. Compared to the same quarter in the previous year, the installed system price for retrofit systems came down by 10% and that for new homes was down by 9%.
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| Japan residential PV average system cost by quarter |
Although the program didn’t receive rush applications toward
the end of the fiscal year, over 1.3 GW worth of residential PV systems was
supported by the national rebate program during FY2013.
A big question is whether the Japanese residential PV market can continue growing without the capacity-based incentive moving-forward...
A big question is whether the Japanese residential PV market can continue growing without the capacity-based incentive moving-forward...
Background of the national residential PV rebate program
In 1994, the Japanese government launched the Residential PV
System Dissemination Program, which provided up-front cash rebates. Between
1994 and 2005, it funded total installations of over 930MW, comprising over
250,000 residential PV systems. During this period, Japan dominated the world
PV market in terms of both production and installation.
After 12 years, the federal government thought that the PV
market was self-sufficient and discontinued the residential incentive program,
while Germany and several other countries moved ahead with national FIT
policies.
In 2006, Japan saw its first ever decrease in the annual PV market;
it declined further to 230MW in 2007, and remained at about the same level in
2008. The market decline was due not only to lack of incentives, but also to
lack of domestically-available modules, since Japanese module makers focused on
exporting to Europe, where profit margins were much higher.
To stop the market from further decline, the federal
government re-launched the national residential incentive program in January
2009.
In July 2011, the Japanese government finally launched the
feed-in tariff program, specifically to accelerate the growth of
non-residential segment. Thanks to the
high premium rate, the non-residential segment has grown explosively for the
last few years.
The government considered the residential PV segment as a
mature market and decided to end the national up-front rebate program at the
end of fiscal year 2013 (ending March 31, 2014).